Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
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Background Briefing has a new home at BackgroundBriefing.org.
Please visit and bookmark the new site. You can search show archives here.
2012 Program Archive
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| We begin with today’s activities inside and outside of the Supreme Court as the nine justices take up the constitutionality of the president’s Affordable Care Act. Elizabeth Wydra, the Chief Council of the Constitutional Accountability Center joins us. She has frequently participated in Supreme Court Litigation and we assess the arguments so far and the likely outcome. |
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Then Doctor Margaret Flowers joins us. She is a pediatrician and an organizer with the National Occupation of Washington, DC and a Congressional Fellow for Physicians for a National Healthcare Program and a member of the board of Healthcare-Now. She rallied today on the steps of the Supreme Court in support of a brief she and 50 other doctors filed with the Supreme Court to strike down the individual mandate and institute Single Payer now. |
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Then finally we look into the president’s remarks today, both on the record and off, in South Korea at a global summit focusing on securing fissile nuclear material. John Steinbruner, Professor of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and the Chairman of the Board of the Arms Control Association joins us to discuss the state of both nuclear arms reductions and efforts at nuclear non-proliferation. |
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| MUSIC: Bright Eyes - The Trees Get Wheeled Away; Jackson Browne - Doctor My Eyes; Built To Spill - You Were Right; Sons of the Pioneers - Old Man Atom |
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| We begin with the nuclear summit in South Korea and speak with Sung Yoon Lee who is a professor of International Affairs at the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University. We discuss President Obama’s visit to the DMZ and the uninvited guest in the north whose new leader is planning a deal-breaking missile test. |
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Then as demonstrations mobilize across the country expressing outrage over the killing of a black teenager Treyvon Martin by George Zimmerman, an armed self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer who so-far has been protected by Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, we speak with the Executive Director of ColorOfChange, Rashad Robinson. He joins us to discuss the growing pressure to have George Zimmerman arrested and charged. |
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Then finally we get an update on Syria and discuss the mission by the former head of the U.N. Kofi Annan that the Russian President says is the last chance to avoid prolonged and bloody civil war in Syria. We get a reaction from a member of the Syrian opposition, Radwan Ziadeh about this so-called diplomatic track and the extent to which there already is a war underway in which the dictatorship is using the army to kill the Syrian people. |
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| MUSIC: The Shins - We Will Become Silhouettes;Stiff Little Fingers - Johnny Was; The Beatles - Happiness Is A Warm Gun; Syrian Protesters - Bashar Must Go |
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We begin with an analysis of the latest Supreme Court ruling as well as the much-anticipated decision on the Obama healthcare reform law. Former White House Council and Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States, John Dean joins us. A best-selling author, his latest book is “Broken Government: How Republican Rule destroyed the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Branches”. |
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Then we look into the President’s energy tour and his visit today to Cushing, Oklahoma where the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline he just approved begins. Jamie Henn the co-founder with Bill McKibben of 350.org joins us. He and Bill McKibben have been leading the fight to stop the Keystone pipeline that will carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to refineries in Texas. |
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Then an expert on terrorists, Mia Bloom joins us to examine the methods and motivation of the alleged Al Qaeda French/Algerian terrorist who killed three children, a Rabbi and three paratroopers and was shot dead today by a police sniper after wounding three police officers. Mia Bloom is the author of “Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror” and “Bombshell: Women and Terror”. |
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| MUSIC: Shorty Long - Here Come The Judge; Xavier Rudd - Messages; Minnesotans Against Global Warming - Drill Baby Drill; MGMT - Pieces of What |
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We begin with a call today by a group of U.S. Senators for the Congress and the White House to act to stop Wall Street speculator from driving up the price of gas. Senator Bernie Sanders fills us in on what he and his colleagues are calling for while the rest of the Congress, the White House and the Press remain silent on this issue while blaming everything else but Wall Street for the pain at the pump. |
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Then we speak with Alec MacGillis, who is the New Republic’s chief correspondent for the 2012 campaign. He wrote the cover story in the New Republic’s April issue “The Big Split: Why the hedge fund world loved Obama in 2008 – and viscerally despises him today.” We discuss why Wall Street is funding Obama’s opposition and the extent to which they are manipulating the economy to hurt his reelection chances. |
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Then we go to Paris and speak with Francois D’Alancon, the foreign correspondent with the French daily newspaper “La Croix”. He is the paper’s former foreign news editor and has covered the Middle East extensively. We look into the police standoff in Toulouse, France where Mohamed Merah, wanted for the murder of three French paratroopers, a Rabbi and three Jewish children is holed up under siege. We examine what is known about this suspected assassin and how much his claim to be with Al Qaeda is credible. |
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Then finally we are joined by the head of the Association of Prosecuting Attorney’s David LaBahn, to find out more about Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law and similar laws that 32 other states have adopted. We look into how it is shielding the killer of a 17 year boy who has not been prosecuted for what is becoming increasingly apparent, was a cold-blooded murder fueled by racism and the delusions of a wanna-be cop. |
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| We begin by following up on yesterday’s conversation with Simon Johnson, the former Chief Economist at the IMF who called the JOBS bill now before the Senate a colossal mistake of historic proportions. The former Chief Prosecutor of the Savings and Loan banksters, William K Black joins us to detail the disastrous deregulation in this bi-partisan bill. He has an article at the Huffington Post “The JOBS Act Is So Criminogenic That It Guarantees Full-Time Jobs for Criminologists”. |
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Then we look into the apparent murder of a 17 year old boy by a wanna-be cop who was sanctioned by Florida law to carry a concealed weapon with which he killed the unarmed victim. But because of another Florida law, the “Stand Your Ground" law, the perpetrator is able to blame the victim and has so far not been charged with a crime. Ken Adams, a Professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, which is nearby to the scene of the crime, explains how imagining that a crime is taking place can justify homicide. |
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Then finally Nancy Cohen joins us in the studio. She is the author of “Delirium: How the Sexual Counterrevolution is Polarizing America.” We discuss her groundbreaking investigation into the shadow movement that fuels our political wars and the current war on women that Republican presidential candidates, Republican State Legislatures and the Republican House are waging. |
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| MUSIC: Fruit Bats - Lives of Crime; Stiff Little Fingers - Johnny Was; The Beatles - Happiness Is A Warm Gun; Of Montreal -Id Engager |
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